7.3 Earthquake

Ok so no time this week because the next people come to email in a few minutes.  Wow this week was busy.  

This Monday we had the regular day and then a birthday party for all the missionaries that have had birthdays in the last 6 months in Kamisugi which was funny because one of the sisters doesn't eat chocolate and those cakes were pure chocolate. Then the next day we spent basically the day prepping for all the zone leaders coming to Sendai for zone leader council and President recieved revelation on a change he wanted to do 5 hours before it began so that was fun to make the changes for that night.  Then we went to zone leader councils activity.  The activity was gonig around to less actives and such and just spreading christmas cheer and we got to drive around with Kaicho(President)  in his car and wow did I gain respect for the Nagamachi missionaries. Those are some of the longest and steepest hills I have ever seen in my life and they go up them everyday on their bikes.  

Then the next day actual zone leader council which is just pure information spat at your face. Then Eikaiwa that night. Trying to throw a bunch of stuff together for the next day which is zone training meeting where we have to teach our zone everything we learned the previous day and do training and yes I'm tired just writing about that.  Then a rest from that for the rest of the day.  

Then Friday we did a little streeting and then got a call from president asking if he can do weekly planning with us and of course you can't say no.  So we did that with him.    Anyway, he even biked from the hombu to our apartment which is pretty impressive. 

Anyway he leaves and and about 30 minutes later the phone is on the desk and it goes off but the picture is not the normal envelope saying email its a guy running which the second it occurred what it was the ground started to shake.  As you know it was a pretty good one.  Then we read the email and it said it was a big earthquake but we just continued with the sound of car alarms and the apartmenty fire alarm going off.  Then we get a mail from the assistants saying that Tagajo *area in our zone* has a tsunami warning.  This causes confusion because ishonomaki *different area* is closer to the coast but yeah. So we try to call and it won't connect, phones are dead.....well that stressful.  Finally get half way through and it says that the number can't be reached because of a disaster.  From there we had to get a hold of everyone in the zone to make sure they were safe but the phones don't work so we have to use this ghetto version of texting that only works every once in awhile but at this same time we suit up and start biking to all the members houses we can to make sure they are ok.  Ha.  it was an interesting night.  Anyway. yeah.  That was the most exciting thing of the week.  This week we have zone conference so that is stressing us out right now because there is no time to plan for it.  We will see how that goes.  Anwyay. No time. Love you all. Talk to you later. 

Busy, busy, busy

Hey everyone. 

A ridciulously busy week here in Sendai.  I feel like I have run around with my head cut off for a week and I have also been exhausted so Ohori choro has kinda had to just pull me around.  Not even sure what to say about this week.  It was good I guess.  

I feel like I'm kinda cursed with investigators.  Weren't able to meet any this week which was depressing. So yeah....not a whole lot to say about that. 

I went around to all the district meetings in the zone this week which took a whole day basically but it was fun to see other people around the mission.  Kinda terrifying to be at the Nagamachi district meeting and asking the assistants to do stuff for the zone.....aka....asking Shinno choro my father to do things.  It was fun to catch up with him a little over the last few random times we have had a minute or two to just chat.  Also there are a ton of people that come to Eikaiwa(English class) which was scary.  I actually have to teach these people english. Although they freaked on me when I gave them homework.  Ha. Whoops. ;-)  Oh well they will live.  

Lets see, what else.  Had splits with the APs this week but my split kinda became....well interesting because...ok quick japanese lesson.  So in order to get your license in Japan if you are Japanese you have to go through driving school which is pretty long I think and way expensive and your license itself is also way expensive and all this jazz so most Japanese elders don't have a license and the church sure isn't going to pay for one and all this schooling.  So our assitants *(The only one that have cars) normally have one foreigner and one japanese elder.  The foreigner just has to prove that he has a foreign license, pay like 50 dollars and pass the practical test.  So the American is the driver for the companionship.  Well.........good old "E" choro failed his first time last week which is too be expected because they are way strict here.  But he planned on taking it again on Wednesday and he was surely going to pass that time...... Well let me explain the phone call I got on Wednesday.

Shinno-"So.......splits are going to change tomorrow?"

Me-"Why?"

Shinno-"We may have had an accident at the driving center"

Me-"Accident?"

Shinno-"Yes....."

Me-"Everett choro hit something! Wow that stinks"

Shinno-(Didn't really understand I think)-"We need to come back tomorrow but we have appointments in Nagamachi and yeah....accident"

Me-".....are you guys ok? Like why does he have to go back? What did you break?"

Phone gets taken from Shinno choro and "E" choro picks it up in an aggitated voice

Everett-"Hey Elder Carter I ran a stop sign in my drivers test and we need to come back for a retake"

-Me trying to hold back laughter-

Me-"Ok...." 

Yes did it need that much explanation no, but it was the highlight of my week so we spent the majority of the day in Izumi and the testing center but he passed!  It was fun though because everyone in our waiting room (Not only Americas DMV is slow but japans too) were foreigners so I got to talk to a lot of different type of people.  Then normal splits from there. Kinda funny to do splits with someone in my area that had 2 weeks previous just finished working 6 months in that area.... Yeah I was the one that didn't know the area at all.  It was all very fun.  From there what else happened.

Oh FHE was way fun at the mission home.  American food, watched a christmas church movie, all that jazz.  

Also this weekend we had a sports activity which was way fun.  Bigger areas have so many activities its ridiculous.  

Not sure if I said this last week but I finished the Book of Mormon in Japanese.......yeah be impressed. 

Random fact about this zone. We have two district leaders.....ones name is Elder Sanders.......one is Elder Saunders........in Japanese they are pronounced the same........ I have already wanted to beat my head into the wall numerous times over this......

First week in Kamisugi as Zone Leader

Hello family.  So its been a ridiculously busy week over the last week but whatever.  Taken some getting used to to understand everything that is going on.  It reminds me of the general conference talk by Elder Uchtdorf.  All my branches have been like the old Piper Cub and now i'm in the Blue Angels jet.  Its way cool but terrifying.  I'm sure I will get used to it.  But yes there are 6 missionaries in this ward alone so that is pretty crazy if you ask me.  

But yeah we went through all the normal stuff.  Got all packed up. It snowed some more in Yokote so that was an adventure.  Went through various things there.  I think there might at least have been one person that misses me threre.  Our eternal investigator came to the bus stop to send me off which was nice.  Came to Sendai we joined there Eikaiwa  (there are actually people there.  Then on the ride back to the mission home Ohori choro filled me in on some of the stuff we had to do that night and off we went.  I was that night  calling our district leaders which one is my kohai in the MTC who couldn't believe that I would be the zone leader. Oh well.  Anyway.  From there its all been kinda a blur. 

The people here have a lot of missionary fire which is awesome.  Especially the Ward mission leader.  He has more fire then President Rasmussen ...... maybe. I still don't even know a lot of things that are going on.  Elder Ohori kinda just goes off and does his thing sometimes.  Oh well.  I will have more information though as the time goes by.  Every month president has a FHE at his home so that is tonight and we are going with an investigator so that should be fun. Never have had a chance to go but this time we can.  Yay.

Way funny that you are reading Lay choros blog.  He was the AP when I came in.......therefore he could get all those pictures.  Even if you are an AP you don't even see all the Churches.  So yes that would be a nice idea but yeah.  Also one of you mentioned a mission christmas party......we don't have those in Japane.  The only time the mission has gathered in probably years is when Elder Oaks came and that cost the church a couple thousand dollars easy to get us all there.  Sounds like Thanksgiving and black friday were basically a success which is good to hear.  What else is there to say about my life.  Not a whole lot.  Today I had to fight the governement because Yokote messed up the paperwork of me leaving so that and me writing another error on the paperwork made it so they kinda freaked out and worried I was trying to hide something from them.  Oh well.  I'm not in jail so thats good.  

Anyway until next week. 

Transfer to Kamisugi!

So hello family for the last time from Yokote!

But more about that later.

 

I guess there isn't a whole lot to say about this week.  We tried to meet investigators like always but......well it didn't happen this week.  No LAs even which is too bad although Brother E (might have talked about him before) finally made it back from biking to Tokyo and back.  We were honestly a little concerend he had died on the way. Hes in his 60s.  But weren't able to do a lesson with him though. That was too bad.  Really hoping I would be able to meet more people this week considering I figured I would transfer and all.  Nevertheless this is the way it worked out. I think I might have talked about trying to teach the "K" family before. We pushed forward with that idea and invited them and....drum roll.  Squat happened.  Said that all the kids were too busy right now and so they didn't want to do it.  Little depressing.  Kinda hoping that would have worked out.  Nevertheless.  We also called up "T"-san our referral from tsuroka and he said he was going to come to church so we were way exicted about that but he didn't end up coming.  Ha. Tis my life.  I hope I don't curse Sendai too.  Also yesterday it snowed for the first time and I remembered how painful it was. Not because it was cold but biking and having little floating pieces of ice thrown into yoru eyes it terrible.  Ha.  Oh well. Sendai doesn't get as much snow. So....yeah. Anyway. Thats kinda it for the work this week.

 

Exciting that you were able to go to the movie Lincoln in all its 2 and a half hours of goodness.  Twilight...bleh. ;-) Sounds like it will be a fun thanksgiving too.  Fun fun stuff. We finished our thanksgiving feast this week in the Yokote apartment.  It took like 2 weeks but we got through all the food.  Ah man, I want to take part in this Steven teasing too!!!!! You must tease in behalf of me.

 

So yes transfers.  Always a fun time for the mission.  We just sat and stared at the phone for most of the morning.  I tried to take a video of the call again but it didn't record it again. Stupid camera.  Oh well.  So yes I will be transfered to an area called Kamisugi.  Basically downtown Sendai.  From possibly the smallest area in the mission to the biggest. Awesome.  We have a thing we call here call the *Inaka Noroi* (Countryside Curse) which basically means if you were *born* in a not well populated place you will always not be in a not populated place and I was definitely living up to the curse but apparnetly I have broken it.  But the plot thickens.  One. My new companion is "O" choro so again a japanese elder which I'm happy about. I like having japanese comps, helps my japanese. Especially him.......he speaks WAY fast!.  2. You probably don't remember this(or I didn:t tell you) he was a elder in my district when I first came here so I've done splits with him.  He is known in this mission as the obedient to over exactness missionary.   So it will be interesting to see if he has been broken or is the same straight crazy man he has always been.  (He plans to the minute (Ex. So we will knock on the first door and if they answer it will take 3 minutes but if they don:t maybe a minute)) Should be fun.  And the final exciting part. When I say exciting and mean terrifying. Going to be zone leader there of the biggest zone in this mission.  AH!!!!!! With President on my doorstep.  Terrifying! Very little stays the same in this transfer.  With change also come excitement.  I:m excited to see what all becomes of this.  Possibly a challenging companion , etc.  I:m sure I will miss my Yokote some.  Its been a lesson filled 6 months that went by very quickly.  Always remember the people here. Fun we had. Lessons learned. Etc.  Same with all of the mission I think.  Nevertheless.  All sorts of fun stuff. Only time will tell what actually becomes of it all. 

 

So thats it for today. Ship out Wednesday evening so still a little time.  Then by next week I will be in an area with a ward..............like people come an everything.......and stakes.................college students.........people willing to change...... Shall be fun.

 

Love you all.

Zone training

Another week.  This week's key indicators were a little better but not what I had hoped for.  We had the "K"i family and the "T" referral that we wanted to teach and neither of those have moved forward at all so that was way depressing.  Oh well.  We live.  To be honest nothing really happened fun this week.  

We had zone training which is always an adventure of waking up way early, going to Morioka, having a meeting, then coming back.  6 plus hours of trains and then we went straight to a lesson so we didn't really even eat that day until 9:30.  Oh well. All part of the fun right!? 

There was a lot of housing this week.  Not a whole lot of success seen from that though.  We started eating the thanksgiving that you sent. Thanks for that again. Also made some of the cake for members but still.  You send too much food it goes to members and I'm prety sure it about kills them with sweetness. Welcome to America!!!  I brought the candy corn to zone meeting and our japanese zone leader ate some, got this sick look on his face and said, "Sato dake da yo" (Its only sugar!) I chuckled. Its true.  This may be my last full week in Yokote but yeah. Got made a mark with this last week!  Anyway. Today is a little short but time is short today so love you all. Bye.

 

The Lord chastens those that he loves

Hey family! Hows it going? Hope halloween was fun and all that.  Here we dressed up and acted like missionaries all day.  Pretty crazy stuff. Well again a slower week here but hopefully it will pick up soon.  We have had some good things happen this week and it also was destroyed with comings and going to meetings and this week also have coming and going to meetings but still we will live.  

So because I figure you people will be interested we are getting lost of autumn leaves here. Pretty cool. We drove through the mountains to district meeting and it is quite colorful.   So in the 11th week of the 12 week training program for new missionaries it says. "New missionary takes the lead in all finding and teaching" which in our mission (unofficially) has become what we call "senpai week." (Senior companion week).  So guess what this week is? Yay!  This morning during compaion study I tried to change the order of things and he just looked at me with a straight face and said, "Who's the senpai (senior comp)?" "You are."  "Thats right,"  Ha.  

 

Also something exciting happened that night too.  We got a call from a missionary (we all have the same phone number except for the last 2 digits) and so I pick it up.  And its the Tsuroka Elders and they had a referral that was suppose to be coming to church.  Well, we had district conference so we weren't going to have church in Yokote so that was a bummer.   But we still got their information and then the next morning I got a call from the friend that had referred him and said he was going to take his friend to Morioka for district conference the next day! Yay! Way cool. Didn't end up coming because someone in his family was sick but still. We have high hopes for him this week because he sounds like he has a whole lot of interest. 

 

We also had interviews with President which were supposed to happen the end of this week but since we were there and to save time he did them then so I had no time to prepare but I lived through it.  I could also hear everything said in Elder "H" interview. Funniest part of that was he asked how it was going recently and he said lessons were rough and President "R" responds with "The Lord chastens those that he loves"  and the smart alek son of mine responds with "Then we must be really loved."  It made me giggle. Also at district conference I got to meet "S" kyodai from Aizu.  Not sure how much I talked about him back in Aizu but he was my favorite. He is way aweomse and the hardest worker ever in the church and therefore is now part of the mission presidency.  So I get to see him lots now! Yay!

 

So hopefully we will have lots to report next week.  Next transfer is coming up way fast. I feel like my time in Yokote is very very short. Kinda ready to transfer but still don't want to leave these leads that we have.  Mah. Whatever works. 

 

When we visit LAs and stuff that scripture you wrote father is always the one that I share. We don't have all the answers and there is a lot of heart-ache and horribleness and roughness in the world but if we can remember just the simple fact that God is our Father and does love us then we have a very important step in the right direction and sometimes thats all we can rely on.  Mah. Has never gotten anyone to come back to church but I think even active members need to remember that too. 

 

Love you all. Hope all is well with you peeps. Talk to you later. 

Change of age of missionaries

So how's everyone?  Another even slower week this week (soon they can't get any slower so yeah).  A lot of housing and stuff. A lot of rain too.  Wow I'm sick of rain.  I'm about ready for the snow just because it is a lot easier to deal with than rain.  We live though.  Anyway.  I don't know if I thanked you guys for your unneeded package that you sent but thanks.  Didn't meet a single investigator this week so that was  bad.  Had 1 LA lesson and 1 with the "K's" so yeah.  Had one of our investigators suck a ton of our time so that was cool but didn't even get a chance to do a lesson.  This next weekend we have district conference so that should be fun.  Get to hang out with President R a ilttle bit more.  Um. Not a whole lot to report on with this week.  Really nothing at all exciting happend. 

 

Elder Grow's meeting was interesting.  He went an hour and a half over but he's a seventy so he can do that.  It was funny when he was over by an hour he looked over to President R and asked "You probably are stressing that we need to go right now aren't you?" "No.....I can drive really fast."  Funny man.  but it was fun to see half the mission all together. Don't have many opportunities to see all these missionaries.  Also got to see Shinno choro as the assistant. It has been like 6 months since I saw him.  He was way busy so didn't get to talk much (although he broke his thumb so he had a cast on it which was funny).  But a lot of interesting things talked about with Elder Grow.  Wanting to focus on LAs more than we have before and he took all our planning techniques and threw them in the trash so that was slightly concerning.  Interesting to hear some of his knowledge about the behind the scnes stuff at headquarters which leads me to my main event. Check out these stats

 

After the Saturday conference the #1 trending tweet on Twitter was the change of age for missionaries.

 

MTC time is being cut by a 1/3 across the board

 

The freshman class of BYU is going to be non-existent (ok so thats not official but probably will see an effect there)

 

Normally each week 500-700 applicants for missionary service come in.

The week after conference 4,000 applicants came in 2,000 elders, 2,000 sisters

He only had the data from the first 3 days of the next week but in the first 3 days there were 3,600 applicatants, 1500 elders 2000 sisters

 

Needless to say......wow.

 

Sounds like they are still deciding how much each missions allotted missionaries will increase so that will be interesting and the mission presidents are to put these extra missionaries in "centers of strength" and to use them more fully for rescuing less actives.

 

So thats what I have. 

 

Always no time.  Love you all. Sayonara.